Hell it is!
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| Welcome to Hell (Photo credit: googly) |
So, do we dismiss every aspect of the report? Um, yes.
And yet, Russian boreholes not withstanding, the episode exhibits the concept many people insist on, that Hell is not merely a state of mind, but a real place. So is it?
The State Hell is in
The three most important aspects of real estate and the afterlife: location, location, location. It is essential that we disabuse ourselves of the misconception that the nature of Hell is unknowable because it is a merely “spiritual reality” or a “state of mind” of self-inflicted emotional pain experienced subjectively.
For example, Pope John Paul II, in a live audience address given on July 28, 1999 opined that,
"Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.”
He didn’t supply any biblical backing to that view, which one of the unique job perks of the papacy: the prerogative of infallible proclamation. I.e. “It is so because I said so.”
Incidentally, previous infallible popes, and even a recent successor, Benedict XVI clarified that,
"Jesus came to tell us that he wants us all in Heaven, and that Hell, of which so little is said in our time, exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to his love.” (25 March 2007)
On the other end of the Catholic-Protestant divide, the ex-evangelical Rob Bell declared in characteristically slippery language:
[Hell is] a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep without our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God’s world God’s way,” (Love Wins, p. 95).
So, according to Bell (I think), Hell is the stuff that bugs you, and messes up this world, but not a place dead people go.
But the Bible describes Hell only in terms of it being a place. For example, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), Jesus employs unequivocally spatial language of “from here” and “to there” and “between us.”
And yet, that location is not geographic in the sense that it is in our realm (or what Stephen Hawking would call “our dimension”). So, no, Google Maps wouldn’t be of any help, nor would Russian drilling crews. So, where exactly is Hell?
Going Down
In a word, Hell is…down. The Bible consistently refers to the location of this realm in terms of a universal “descent motif.” That’s book club argot for “down.” They don’t call it the Underworld for nothing.
Here are some examples from the Bible…
- Job 17:16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?
- Romans 10:7 Who will descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
- Isaiah 14:11, 15 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps; maggots are laid as a bed beneath you, and worms are your covers. …But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.
- Luke 10:15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
- This identification of Hell as being “down” is meant to be an unmistakable contrast with the other spiritual realm, Heaven, which is always said to be…you guessed it: “up.”
- 2 Cor 12:2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven… caught up into paradise…
What is interesting is that the description of Hell is consummately spatial, and even involves terminology used to designate various areas or regions within Hell. There are hints at levels of punishment in Hell, as well as distinct sectors, or as I think of them, suburbs of Hell.
1. Sheol/Hades
It may surprise you to learn that the Bible uses specific terminology to refer to the various locations in the afterlife. For example, what most people refer to as “Heaven” the Bible actually sub-divides into Paradise (also called the third Heaven), and the New Heavens and New Earth. Likewise, what most people call “Hell or Sheol: the Bible slices into Gehenna and Tarterus. It helps to know Greek.
Hades in Greek, usually refers generically to death, but in the Bible it designates the place where condemned souls are sent. In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the equivalent term is Sheol, also meaning the grace or death general, but sometimes specifically as the holding place of the condemned.
Within Sheol/Hades there is a place called Gehenna, and another place called the Abyss, or Tartarus.
2. Gehenna
Gehenna (presenting in the NT as a direct Greek transliteration of the Aramaic word) is where the unrighteous go immediately when they die, like the rich man in Luke 16.
3. The Abyss/ Tartarus
Tatarus is a Greek word that is more specific than Hades, and refers to an Abyss where some demons have been locked away, and where Satan will in the future be bound for a thousand years.
- 2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [i.e. Tartarus] and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
- Luke 8:30 Jesus then asked him [a demon possessed man], “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.
4. The Lake of Fire
And there is another place in the afterlife dimension, called the Lake of Fire, which is unoccupied at present, but after Judgment Day the condemned souls in Gehenna and the demons who had been in Tartarus (2 Pet 2:4), the demons who had been on earth, and Satan himself will all be cast into the Lake of Fire as the final judgment. This is the part that lasts forever.
- Revelation 20:1-154 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
- Revelation 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
Although there is a fascination with the afterlife in our culture, we should always remember that the Bible is deadly serious about eternity. Hell is the cauldron of God’s righteous, holy wrath against our sin. But God’s amazing grace and immeasurable love has made a way to escape: believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Jesus paid the infinite price of bearing God’s wrath so that whosoever believes in him should have eternal life and not perish. May God use the terrors of Hell and his wrath to drive you toward the splendors of Heaven and his mercy. Author: Criplegate
